The national interests of the countries that impose the sanctions are not clearly and effectively served by these measures. Some are even more damaged than others.
The United States and the West in general, in order to avoid armed conflict, have resorted many times in the recent past to economic and other sanctions against unruly and aggressive countries to enforce behavior. However, experience shows that these measures are far from achieving their declared goals.
For many Western countries, sanctions have become their favorite foreign policy tool. But does this policy bring results? Some of these harsh economic measures (export controls or bans, financial penalties, export barriers, trade sanctions and exemptions) affect large numbers of countries and companies around the world. Sometimes the targets are not states but odd private individuals, such as drug traffickers and Islamist terrorist organizations.
It is often entire countries that become the object of such aggressive policies as North Korea, Iran and more recently Russia. However, sometimes these measures do not achieve their purpose. The Economist Intelligence Unit’s director of global forecasts and expert on Russia and international economic sanctions, Agathi Demarais, in her latest book (“Backfire”, Columbia, 2022) analyzes the issue in detail and highlights the weaknesses of these politicians.
The national interests of the countries that impose the sanctions are not clearly and effectively served by these measures. Some are even more damaged than others.
The United States and the West in general, in order to avoid armed conflict, have resorted many times in the recent past to economic and other sanctions against unruly and aggressive countries to enforce behavior. However, experience shows that these measures are far from achieving their declared goals.
For many Western countries, sanctions have become their favorite foreign policy tool. But does this policy bring results? Some of these harsh economic measures (export controls or bans, financial penalties, export barriers, trade sanctions and exemptions) affect large numbers of countries and companies around the world. Sometimes the targets are not states but odd private individuals, such as drug traffickers and Islamist terrorist organizations.
It is often entire countries that become the object of such aggressive policies as North Korea, Iran and more recently Russia. However, sometimes these measures do not achieve their purpose. The Economist Intelligence Unit’s director of global forecasts and expert on Russia and international economic sanctions, Agathi Demarais, in her latest book (“Backfire”, Columbia, 2022) analyzes the issue in detail and highlights the weaknesses of these politician’s.
Demarais insists that often international sanctions end up with results completely opposite to those intended. In a completely unexpected way, the sanctions affect multinational corporations, unsuspecting ordinary people and governments outside the circle of the targeted, creating serious problems for them and damaging the national interests of the US and other Western countries that have taken them. In other words, the main characteristic of these sanctions is their unanticipated results and their generally negative effects on those who initiated them.
Based on interviews with dozens of experts, government officials of many countries and ordinary citizens, Demarais concludes the damage that such diplomatic choices can do to those who inspire them.
First of all, many of the countries that impose them suffer great or even greater economic damage than those against whom they are directed. The recent consequences for the countries of Europe in the energy sector from the measures against Russia prove the safe word. Also, the multiple long-term sanctions against states and companies lead many of them to search for ways to avoid them. Thus the effects are mitigated while creating a system of irregular behavior that will likely remain in operation. But the worst thing is that the countries that suffer the sanctions or those that suffer indirectly from their consequences are gradually turning against the USA or the West. The worst thing is that they are getting closer to their rivals, China, Russia or Iran.
It is therefore a given that the national interests of the countries that impose the sanctions are not served clearly and effectively by these measures. Some are even more damaged than others. So isn’t it time for the West to look for different diplomatic tools?
